In a famous book dedicated to American democracy and published in 1835, the French Alexis de Tocqueville devotes a chapter of it to the tyranny of the majority. He explains this tyranny as the greatest danger to democratic government, but is heard much later.
This is what Prof. Antoniy Todorov writes in his blog.
I hear today often, even from educated people, that there are “tyrannies of minorities”, such as the Roma, LGBTI people, drug addicts and all kinds of other “marginals”, that they “drain social funds”, that they “impose on others their understandings“, that they “live on the backs of others”, in short – parasites, superfluous people. But those who commonly share such understandings forget, all too conveniently, that the only minority capable of exercising tyranny because they have the necessary resources are the super-rich. But that's a detail.
The majority, whenever they feel scared, unable to solve essential social problems, dissatisfied with a situation they cannot change and in front of which they feel powerless (among other things, because they are not brave enough to think and act) , finds a minority (one of many in societies) to be fingered for its woes and bullied to embolden the otherwise powerless majority.
The tyranny of the majority can quickly change a democratic government into a totalitarianism in disguise, where no dissenting opinion can be voiced or heard. And these mass attitudes are most often also mass prejudices – beliefs about which we do not ask, where we got them, from whom we accepted them, why they are our beliefs, we accepted them blindly without asking ourselves. Because this is easier and saves us the need to think.
Once Roman emperors like Tiberius persecuted and killed the Jews, but also the first Christians. They were guilty of not wanting to accept the beliefs of the majority. Then the minority became the majority (including by order of the emperor) and began to persecute the heretics, those who had a different understanding of Christianity from what the empowered prelates decreed. Thus to this day they excommunicate the “heretics”, be they religious or secular.
The Holy Inquisition specialized in exposing and punishing heretics, who were only acceptable dead. To this day, this name of the then papal investigative service has become synonymous with torture and inhumane treatment of fellow human beings. Among the heretics, a special place is occupied by “witches” – someone had been able to count the approximate number of women burned at the stake for this – hundreds of thousands in Europe. We should also include this in the “European identity”.
In more recent times, but based on old prejudices, the role of the sacrificial minority is assumed by the Jews. A Nazi propaganda film likens them, along with the mentally ill and the disabled, to the parasites on society that sap its life force and prevent it from developing. This propaganda precedes the next degree of harassment – “Kristallnacht”, when the Nazis made a pogrom of Jewish shops, restaurants, offices. However, the peak of what begins as propaganda is yet to come – concentration camps in World War II equipped with gas chambers for the faster and more efficient “Final Solution”, a term from the Nazi justification for this colossal crime.
Today we have again the adversaries of disadvantaged minorities who are always ultimately defenseless and always minorities. The Roma, classically since they have settled down and do not bring a different and colorful culture to the cities, are the target of all far-right nationalists. And they are called "parasites" because they do not work, but receive social benefits. But those dissatisfied with this never ask themselves, but how and why it has come to the point that in a relatively rich society there can be so many “socially weak” and especially among the Roma. Simple explanations are usually racist – Roma are attributed the worst characteristics of humans.
Or the immigrants, who will necessarily be burdened with the worst expectations: they will rob, rape, live on the backs of ordinary people. This applies even to refugees fleeing the horrors of a civil war and seeking salvation in a peaceful world. And they are surprised to encounter hatred and rejection. Including in Bulgaria, where self-styled “border guards” they will hunt them down and harass them in every way. Contrary to the hope we read in the Tarnovo constitution: “Every slave, regardless of gender, religion and nationality, becomes free as soon as he steps on Bulgarian territory.” (Art. 61)
But lately, one very convenient minority to bully is LGBTI people. Declared “people of sin“ from the church (interestingly, neither the oligarchs, who suck the common wealth, nor the far-right nationalists who call for self-destruction are declared as people of sin). Accused of organizing Pride, of encouraging others to be like them, and what other sins. The last Parliament, which will again be short, found it most urgent to pass in 2024 changes to the Education Act, which prohibits the “propaganda, promotion or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or determining gender identity other than biological“.
The law will also provide for sanctions for teachers who dare to “promote“ ideas and views about gender identities other than biological ones. The next step will probably be to ban the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution. But the children will learn in the expected mandatory religious education classes that we humans are created in the image and likeness of God (although male and female, I wonder what gender God is), but we are conceived in sin. Oh this sex, it turned out to be a sin again?! But then there will also be a list of banned books that have dared to challenge this, and after the ban there will also be auto-daffeta in the squares, where we will burn them so that they do not corrupt the young.
Woe to the teachers in Bulgaria if they are faced with the need to explain to the students something that Botev wrote in “Smeshen plak“:
„Communists are martyrs because the means are not important in their struggle for freedom, but the idea of this struggle. "And freedom will have its Jesuits," says Heine.
Let our journalism now hold its tears, as it will hold them in the European – to lament other capitals, other barbarities and sufferings, when the slave cried out to his master: who are you that weep? Are you male, female, or a hermaphrodite – beast or fish?… And it will be a day – day one.“
There are three traps here. The first, but why “communists are martyrs”? Doesn't the text fall under the law that defines communism as criminal? The second trap is, who is this Heine and why doesn't Botev write Heine? Not to mention, who and what are these “Jesuits”? But the third trap will bring the teacher, whoever he is, right into the provisions of the new law, because he will have to explain what a hermaphrodite is. My poor, my poor Bulgarian teachers!
There is no doubt that the law will only encourage harassment, nothing else. It will encourage violence against those whom the English language calls “strange“ (queer). It will encourage the adoption of more and more bans in areas where, after so much political struggle, bans have been limited. It will usher in punishments and punishments, a wonderful new world dreamed of by those who naively think that these punishments will never overtake them.
Welcome to NRB, but not that one, the people's, but the future Criminal Republic of Bulgaria!
* The title is on FACTS